USC Digital Library has been creating archival digital files from unique and rare materials for 25 years. We have more than 500,000 digital assets in the USC Digital Library containing more than 1.2 million files.
We work with grant-funded projects, USC researchers, and external clients, including as a certified digitization vendor for the Library of Congress.
If you are looking for help navigating and searching the Digital Library, please see our LibGuide:
https://libguides.usc.edu/dlcortex
If you are interested in creating a request for an item from our Special Collection for digitization, please see the Special Collections Reproductions request website:
https://libraries.usc.edu/locations/special-collections/reproduction-services
Handling for digitization
USC Libraries’ digitization, preservation, and discovery services regularly handle rare and valuable books, manuscripts, audio-visual materials, and other objects. Personnel are trained in proper handling techniques, chain of custody tracking, and security.
The digitization labs are housed in the Carol Little Building at 3434 S. Grand Ave. in Los Angeles, a few blocks from the USC University Park Campus. The front desk at the main entrance is staffed 24/7 with an armed USC Department of Public Safety officer. Access is only available to badged staff members and pre-approved guests, whom a staff member must accompany at all times when in the building. USC Facilities Management manages keys to all rooms within the building and distributes keys to approved personnel, who must sign a document acknowledging receipt of a key. Access to our digitization labs is controlled at all times, and the USC Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) team of 306 full-time personnel provide 24-hour security and close coordination with Los Angeles police, fire, and other public safety agencies. We maintain the physical security of our digitization labs via additional restricted card-access areas, controlled-access inventory rooms for the storage of our clients’ physical media, robust fire safety and security systems, and public safety personnel who monitor our facilities 24/7. USC maintains dedicated public safety, facilities, IT, and risk management departments and resources and close working relationships with local, state, and federal agencies charged with public safety and disaster response.
Digitization physical environment
As required in FADGI 2023, the walls of our imaging facility are painted neutral matte gray with less than 60% reflectance to minimize flare and perceptual bias. Floor is gray. Any reflective surfaces on the camera or rig that can be covered are covered with either black velvet or black Velcro to minimize reflections. Monitors are positioned away from capture stations to avoid reflections and direct illumination of items by light from the screen onto the items being photographed. Lighting is positioned to avoid shadows.
The rooms for digitization and storage are climate controlled to avoid environmental damage to originals. The HVAC system includes a HEPA filter to minimize the presence of dust in the facility. The rooms are cleaned on a regular basis to remove dust and dirt brought in from the outside. USC Libraries personnel use compressed air to remove dust from transparent materials in good condition and lint-free cloths on reflective materials in good condition. The storage area is housed in a highly-ventilated and humidity-controlled data room and is maintained in accordance with best practices as identified by USC’s Information Technology Services.
Digitization
All of our staff are trained imaging professionals with advanced certifications in archival imaging from Digital Transitions. We strive to create files that adhere to best practices in the Cultural Heritage Imaging field, and we use the technical guidelines created by the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) as goal posts.
The Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Files represents shared best practices followed by agencies participating in the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Still Image Working Group for digitization of cultural heritage materials. This group is involved in a cooperative effort to develop common digitization guidelines for still image materials (such as textual content, maps, and photographic prints and negatives) found in cultural heritage institutions. [Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials Creation of Raster Image Files, 20]
While we strive to create the highest quality digital assets, we do minimal color correcting when post processing color transparencies. When we create an archival digital image, any distortions, discolorations, or blemishes within the original item will appear in the digital file you receive.
Default file format specifications
All digital files will have the Adobe RGB (1998) color profile embedded.
Reflective photographs will be cropped just beyond the edge. Reflective materials will include a Golden Thread object-level target upon request.
Scanned Documents will be cropped to the edge. We do offer Optical Character Recognition [OCR] to be run on items that will be delivered as PDFs for a nominal fee.
Transparencies will be cropped beyond the edge of the exposure. Unperforated film and single exposures may include some or all edges of the substrate.
Bit Depth:
All image files are output to 16 bits per pixel (48 bit color). Grayscale or monochrome images will be output to 16 bits per pixel grayscale.
Resolutions
Photographic Transparencies:
- Up to 4"x5": 2000-4000ppi. 16 bit tiff AdobeRGB or Gray Gamma 2.2. Captured using medium format digital camera systems and dedicated film scanners.
- 4”x5” up to 8”x10”: 800-1200ppi, 16 bit tiff, AdobeRGB or Gray Gamma 2.2. Captured using medium format digital camera systems and flatbed scanners.
- Anything over 8”x10” is considered oversized and may result in a composite image to achieve resolution.
Reflective Materials:
- Up to 11”x14”: 600 ppi, 16 bit tiff AdobeRGB or Gray Gamma 2.2. Captured using medium format digital camera systems.
- Larger than 11’ x 14” up to 20” x 24”: 400 ppi, 16 bit tiff, AdobeRGB or Gray Gamma 2.2. Captured using medium format digital camera systems and flatbed scanners.
- Anything over 20” x 24” is considered oversized and may result in a composite image to achieve resolution.
All digitized still assets will be output as 16-bit uncompressed TIFF files.
FADGI 2023